


Privilege

by angevin2



Category: Richard II - Shakespeare
Genre: 1980s, 1990s, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkward Morning-After Conversations, Bad Idea Sex, Biphobia, Canon Bisexual Character, Canon Gay Character, Cluelessness, Eurovision, Gratuitous Brecht, Kinsey Scale Abuse, Multi, Oxonian Namedropping, Polyamory, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-14
Updated: 2010-07-14
Packaged: 2017-10-10 13:19:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/100221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angevin2/pseuds/angevin2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Richard kissed a girl and he liked it. And then things got really complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Privilege

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the big shiny academic!AU _Crescive In His Faculty._ This one makes reference to a few other ones, but the most pertinent is 's lovely ["Reunification."](http://community.livejournal.com/the_phrensies/7028.html) Also, I have about three unfinished fics that expand on things referenced in this one, but obviously you can't know that because I have not finished them. Also, the bit about Eurovision is probably funnier if you've seen [the 1992 UK entry](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4uK77ZtPh4), and [Dschinghis Khan](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQAKRw6mToA). No, I can't explain that either. ANYWAY. This story would not exist without the help of many wonderful people. Chief thanks go to **gileonnen** for helping to create this infinitely entertaining AU and for saint-like patience; to **lareinenoire**, **absinthe_shadow**, and **aris_tgd** for their tremendously helpful input at all stages, to my dear coz **faithhopetricks** for Dschinghis Khan, and to for constant hand-holding, encyclopedic knowledge of Oxford, and for the lovely [banner](http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a293/angevin2/pbs%20for%20teh%20b00k/bigfic2.png) she made for this fic.

> Surely Robert's tongue is an asset to any party?  
> \-- Anne of Bohemia in Josephine Tey's _Richard of Bordeaux_
> 
> O, love's best habit is in seeming trust...  
> \-- Shakespeare, Sonnet 138

**November 1987**

It had all been fairly simple, the first time.

The first time, there hadn't been a lot of really complicated negotiation once it became clear where things were going: at some point, Anne had interrupted the making out long enough to ask _wait, what about your boyfriend?_ and Richard had said _oh, it's totally fine, we have an open relationship_ and then he'd continued sliding his hands up her shirt while she started unbuttoning his trousers.

And the whole thing is just completely brilliant. Richard's never actually had sex with a girl before, and he can't get over all the things that are _different_ from sleeping with guys in general, or how sex with Anne is specifically different from sex with Robbie in particular, like how much softer she feels, or the squeaky little gasps she makes when he goes down on her, or the way she wraps her arms and legs around him and buries her face in his shoulder when she comes (and that's without getting started on the stuff she can do to _him_).

It's only afterwards that things start to get complicated.

When Richard wakes up the next morning he notices that, first of all, she's watching him, and, second, that it doesn't feel weird or awkward at all. Obviously they're doing something right. She leans down to kiss him, and it tastes minty, so she's either brushed her teeth while he was sleeping or she is just everything Shakespeare's mistress is _not._ Richard is pretty sure he tastes a lot less pleasant.

"So," she says, when they pull apart for air. "I should mention, before this gets _too_ involved, that you're out of condoms." Her expression is baleful. "I checked before you woke up."

"Well," Richard says. "I suppose we'll have to stock up for next time."

Anne starts to laugh in what is patently relief. "Oh, thank God you said it," she says. "I didn't want to ask!"

"You don't have to," Richard says, smiling back at her. "I want to see a lot more of you -- " and as they realize what he's said he coughs and she raises an amused eyebrow.

"And how _exactly_ do you intend to manage that?"

"I have my ways," he laughs, and kisses her again.

"Are you busy tonight? After your tute?" she says.

"Well," Richard says, "and this sounds a lot more awkward than I'd really prefer it to be, but I'm actually having drinks with Robbie this evening."

...okay, _this_ is the awkward part. Anne's expression is crestfallen, and she's clearly trying not to look like it.

"I see," she says, rolling away from him as best she can on the rather small bed and wrapping the sheet awkwardly around herself. After an uncomfortable minute or so, she asks, "What are you going to tell him?"

Richard pulls her back into his arms before he answers. "Look at me, Anne," he says. She turns over, hesitantly, her eyes wide, and he whispers, "I'm going to tell him I'm madly in love with you" -- and she smiles at him in a way that makes him feel absolutely sure of it. "I promise you we'll work it out."

Anne nods, after a moment. "I know you were with him first," she says, "and I know it would be wrong to ask you to choose me over him, or anything like that -- "

Richard isn't quite sure how to explain how he intends for the whole multiple-relationships thing to work, so instead, he takes advantage of her momentary search for words to lean in and kiss her again.

"Hey," he says, afterwards. "I wouldn't totally re-evaluate my sexuality for just anyone, you know."

Because it's totally true -- it's not really the kind of thing you think about _logically,_ even if maybe you should, when you're watching someone you think is just a close friend, since you are gay and thus obviously not physically attracted to her, studying intently while leaning against you on the sofa and you find yourself wondering why it took you so long to notice that her body feels really nice against yours, and why you're fixating on the way she chews her lip when she's reading, and whether asking her _right now_ if she wants to make out would be a _fantastic_ idea. It's the sort of thing doesn't _really_ hit you until you're in bed afterwards trying to figure out where you're going from there: you just had sex with a girl and really loved it, and then you remember having sex with your boyfriend, just to make sure, and that still seems like an entirely desirable thing to do, which must mean you're really bisexual when you thought you were gay.

Richard turns that thought over in his head, trying to get used to it: _I'm Richard Bordeaux and I am bisexual._ He feels like he ought to be more confused or tortured or like he's turning his back on his gay identity or something, except that he's not at all confused about how he feels, and it's not like he's done anything _wrong_ by falling for Anne, except on a political level, if you are really militantly gay or, alternately, opposed to dating people from Eastern bloc countries, but Richard is really not either of those. So, you know, fuck politics.

Anne smiles up at him again, and she's absolutely radiant. "I never thought I even had a chance with you," she says softly. "So if I do -- I can't let it go. I have to trust you."

"I promise you," Richard says again, "I'll do everything I can to earn it."

"We should get up now," Anne says, after another lengthy kiss. "Before I'm tempted to dismiss the risks of unprotected sex."

Richard groans and rolls over onto his back: having serious discussions about intimate relationships is one thing, but he is not entirely reconciled to the prospect of getting up, which frankly seems like much more work. He watches as Anne slides out of bed and begins to gather her scattered clothing.

"Richard?" she says. "Do you remember what you did with my bra?"

***

Of course, when he actually sees Robbie that evening it's a little bit more complicated than he had hoped, in no small part because Robbie is wearing those pants with the buckles that are indescribably hot if maddeningly time-consuming to remove, but also because it's not like they're going to have a productive discussion about _anything_ in the middle of the Coven, let alone once they're back at Robbie's flat and Robbie's got him bent over the arm of the sofa and is blowing his fucking _mind._

And after _that_ it occurs to him that, having spent the last two nights getting vigorously and thoroughly laid, he probably ought to get a respectable amount of sleep before attempting a serious discussion.

The next time he sees Anne is over lunch on Monday and she doesn't even mention Robbie at all, but when she kisses him goodbye before running off to a lecture she whispers "Thank you for not avoiding me," and this makes him feel guilty enough that he calls Robbie to make plans for dinner (at which, he promises himself, he will actually start That Discussion) before heading to the Bod to pore over the Rolls of Parliament on microfilm, which surely has to count as a penance of sorts.

"You going to eat that?" Robbie asks him, later, as he sits on the floor of his room poking anxiously at the curried prawns he is _entirely_ too nervous to eat.

"Maybe?" Richard says, smiling in a way he suspects is rather thin. "I don't think I was actually hungry."

"Something wrong?" Robbie says, moving to sit beside him and sliding one arm around his waist while reaching for the prawns with the other, and Richard leans against his shoulder, just enjoying the feel of his body for a moment before things become incredibly awkward (maybe they won't, maybe he'll totally get it?).

"Not exactly." Richard swallows hard. Really it's best to get it over with. "It's just...well. I know we agreed that we weren't totally _exclusive_, right?"

"Right..." Robbie says, tension creeping into his voice, and he pauses in the midst of impaling a prawn on his plastic fork.

"Because the thing is -- " Richard sits up straight, then, in order to look Robbie in the eye, though he doesn't quite get there, staring uncomfortably at the uneaten prawn instead. "I've started this -- this thing with someone, and -- "

"Oh, well, there's no need to look so damn _tragic_ about it," Robbie laughs. "Who is he?"

"That's the other thing." Richard swallows hard. "Her name is Anne and she's an engineering student -- "

His explanation is cut off by an explosive coughing fit as Robbie inhales fragments of prawn; Richard rubs his back tentatively. "You okay?" he asks, his voice coming out all guilty and tiny and generally stupid.

"Jesus, Richard, I have curry in my sinuses and you're ditching me for a woman, what the fuck do _you_ think?"

"What?" Richard can feel his face going about the same shade of red that Robbie's, thanks to the spontaneous prawn inhalation, is. "God, no, I'm not! Really. Absolutely I'm not. I promise. Because I love you. That's not going to change."

Robbie has just finished blowing his nose, and he looks up at Richard for a moment -- his frown lightens for an instant, and then he crumples his napkin and mutters, "He's mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse's health, a boy's love, or a whore's oath," and Richard can feel all of his insides go cold and then drop into his shoes even as Robbie's expression softens. "Oh, God, Richard, don't look like that," he says, and buries his face in his hands.

"I don't see why you can't accept that I'm bisexual." It's the first time Richard has said it aloud, and it feels completely inadequate to the situation and not really what he wants to say right at this moment at all.

Robbie looks up at him despairingly. Richard is really tempted to just lean in and kiss him, but he doesn't think it would help. "You could at least have _mentioned_ that," Robbie says.

"I didn't know it myself until I met Anne." Richard shrugs helplessly, flailing his hands about like he's swimming in some horrible sea of awkward, and Robbie throws his hands up.

"Oh, that's even _better_."

Richard swallows hard, and then, deciding that nothing he can think of to say is going to sound convincing, reconsiders his conviction that kissing isn't going to help. He leans forward, winding his fingers in Robbie's hair, and, as unresolved as the whole thing is, Robbie doesn't hesitate for more than a second as Richard presses him onto his back.

"Now that's just unfair," Robbie groans, after they've broken for air.

"I can prove I haven't turned straight, if you want," Richard murmurs, his lips brushing against the soft skin just under Robbie's ear, and he can feel Robbie shiver beneath him.

"I'm holding you to a high standard," Robbie says, sliding his thigh between Richard's and making him gasp.

"Remind me again why I put up with you?" Richard props himself up on his elbows in order to get into a better position for glaring, but he is now painfully hard and he suspects this spoils the general impression of disapproval.

"Because I'm really fucking good at getting you off?" Robbie's got his hands into Richard's jeans now, and anything he's got as a rejoinder evaporates somewhere in the back of his brain, coming out instead as a strangled-sounding whimper. "God, you're lucky you're beautiful," Robbie laughs.

"I _told_ you -- " Richard manages, through gritted teeth. "You don't have to be so _smug_ about it."

"Oh, but I do." Robbie's grin is decidedly evil, and his hands are very warm, and -- Richard's pants are suddenly rather sticky, and Robbie withdraws his hands and checks his watch as Richard buries his face in the crook of his neck and shudders against him. "Five minutes," he says. "Guess that _does_ count as not straight, doesn't it?"

"You're a complete bastard, Robbie," Richard murmurs into his shoulder.

"And you love it," Robbie laughs.

"I _said_ so, didn't I -- _fuck_, Robbie, that's disgusting," Richard exclaims as Robbie wipes his hands off on the back of his shirt.

"Oh, it is not," Robbie says, sitting up. "You know exactly where it's been. Anyway, I am not done with this conversation, but first, it's my turn."

"After you wiped your hands on my shirt?"

Robbie smirks and rolls his eyes. "Because you came all over them."

"Because you had your hands in my pants!"

"And," Robbie repeats, leaning back with incredible self-satisfaction, "you love it." He grins in that way he's got that can reduce Richard to a small and rather aroused puddle, and Richard leans forward and kisses him again.

"I really do," he whispers against Robbie's lips, slipping his hands beneath Robbie's shirt, fingers idly tracing patterns on his chest.

"And that's lovely," Robbie says, indicating the bulge in his trousers, "but this thing isn't going to suck itself, darling."

***

"So I've talked to Robbie about everything," Richard tells Anne on the phone later. "I think we're all right."

"I'm glad he understands," Anne says. "What did you tell him?"

Richard is fairly certain that even on the phone Anne can somehow detect the sudden blaze of heat radiating from his cheeks.

"Erm, you know," he says. "Stuff."

***

Richard has promised Robbie that nothing's going to change, but of course things do. It takes him a great deal more time than it really should to get around to introducing Anne and Robbie, because how the hell do you introduce your girlfriend to your boyfriend, anyway -- but it turns out to go surprisingly fine, thank God for beer. Over Easter vac Richard takes Anne to London to meet his mum, which goes quite well after the initial Nazi-related misunderstandings are cleared up.

This year they all go to May Morning together. It isn't as intoxicating as last year, but it is more grounded.

In the summer, Anne's friends Henry and Mary have a baby, which makes Anne go utterly goopy and provide Richard with numerous updates on little Harry's development. Richard points out that she's utterly adorable when she's being maternal, and she turns beet-red, which makes him do much the same thing since it's obvious where her mind has gone.

Because really, it's not as if they're ready for _that_ yet.

***

**June 1988**

Richard doesn't exactly _mean_ to come out to his mother, precisely, as having multiple partners, although if he had thought about it a bit more beforehand, it might have occurred to him that seeing as how his father was in fact her _third_ husband, or, more pertinently, second-and-a-half depending on how you wanted to count the first and second, not that Richard has particularly ever wanted to ask about the details -- she was not unlikely to at least be _understanding_ about his own preferences. And he knows, deep down, that he's got to tell her _sometime_, because he can't exactly go about pretending to be monogamous when it means hiding one of the best things about his life, and when he's not actually _ashamed_ or, really, all that _worried_ about it or anything, just not really looking forward to the possibility of having to _explain_ himself, since most people don't understand (even though Mum probably _would_ even if she didn't _say so_).

In the event, though, it ends up happening completely by accident while they're having afternoon tea at the Old Parsonage and he's explaining his impending retirement from acting after _Twelfth Night_ finishes up its run next weekend.

"But you're so _good_ at it," Mum is saying. "I know I'm just your mum and I always think you're superb, but you were utterly brilliant as Algernon Moncrieff last year."

"The thing is," Richard says, "people keep telling me that Sir Andrew is the part I was born to play. It's rather put me off acting."

Mum laughs. "Well, it's a better fit than Jesus in the York Crucifixion, isn't it?"

"I told you, they wanted someone they could _lift_."

"And who was willing to wear a loincloth in public, as I recall."

Richard squeezes lemon into his tea slightly more emphatically than is strictly necessary for simple juice extraction. "The _point_ is," he continues, "that telling someone that his ideal role is _Sir Andrew Aguecheek_ is a horrible thing to say to a man. Robbie has already firmly communicated his intention never to let me live it down -- "

"Are you and Robbie still friends, then?" she says, raising an amused eyebrow.

"Erm." Richard examines his fingers for a moment, feeling caught out. "You might say that."

"You never did tell me what happened with you two, why you broke up. I was surprised you never mentioned it, because you seemed so -- well, _besotted_ with him."

"Well." Richard stirs his tea nervously, never mind that it doesn't really need stirring, particularly. It would be incredibly easy to make something up, but that would feel wrong -- not so much because of the whole lying-to-his-mother thing, never mind that she was traditionally really good at telling when he was doing that, but because he loves Robbie and doesn't particularly care if saying so adds a little more awkwardness to his life.

"Nothing..._happened_, exactly. We, uh, we _didn't_, really."

"Oh." She frowns a little, busily applying some lemon curd to a scone, and then her expression darkens. "Does Anne know about this?"

"What?" This is a shocking enough idea that Richard manages to drop his spoon and splash hot lemony tea into his eyes. "God, Mum, give me _some_ credit!"

"Well, I suppose that's all right then," she says, sipping at her tea as Richard flails about for a napkin and wipes the tea splatter off his face; the next half-second is entirely tranquil before she frowns again. "Does _Robbie_ know?"

It is only with tremendous effort that Richard manages to keep from faceplanting directly into a plate of Victoria sponge.

***

The thing that Richard _doesn't_ mention to his mother, since he doesn't quite feel ready for it yet -- and probably she'd say "Well, that's moving a bit fast, isn't it?" and maybe it is, but he's absolutely certain it's in the right direction -- is that he and Anne have been talking for most of Trinity about the prospect of moving in together next year, assuming everyone's efforts to remain in Oxford as postgrads work out (and he doesn't even want to _think_ about what he'll do if they don't, because every time he's tried he feels like throwing up).

The first time he actually floats the idea is to Robbie -- who's never really been keen on the idea of living together for reasons Richard has never precisely understood, but Richard thinks maybe all three of them could be housemates, it would be totally different then -- but Robbie's response to _that_ is "Oh, hell no."

Anne is much more receptive to the idea, but at the same time, she's oddly nervous, even after the exam results (firsts for both of them, which Anne had found gleefully surprising and Richard a source of immense relief that he didn't fuck up epically) portend good things, insofar as the whole thing being feasible is concerned.

"We need to really talk," she says one day at breakfast, "about what's off-limits for us. Before we decide that we're definitely going to move in together. I mean, we've been together for less than a year, and -- "

"Oh, I've thought about that," Richard says. "What if I can have sex with other blokes and you can have sex with other girls?"

Anne puts down her coffee cup and buries her face in her hands for a moment.

"Richard?" she says, looking up at him despairingly. People have been doing that to him a lot, lately. "_Schätzelein_?"

"Yes?"

"I don't _want_ to have sex with other girls."

"Oh." He absorbs this for about a second before it seems odd, and not a little disappointing. "Why not?"

Anne's expression is now downright pained. "I don't know!" she says, flailing her hands a bit. "I just...am not interested in it."

"Oh," Richard says again.

"Not everyone is bisexual," Anne continues, somehow managing to speak through gritted teeth _without actually gritting her teeth_, which is kind of impressive.

"Well," Richard says, "isn't monosexuality really a social construct? I don't think we should let ourselves be pigeonholed when sexuality is really more of a _spectrum_ \-- "

Anne leans on the table and buries her face in her folded arms. "That is not even _close_ to my point," she moans.

Richard leans over and gently extracts a lock of her hair from his toast.

"You've got jam in your hair," he says helplessly.

"The _point_ is," Anne says, grabbing a napkin and wiping at her hair with more force than is strictly necessary for simple jam extraction, "that I don't think it's fair to assume that everyone wants what _you_ want."

Richard is thrown off-balance enough by this that he has to feign an undue interest in his toast for a moment, even though the proper response is obvious.

"All right," he says, finally. "What do _you_ want?"

Anne stirs determinedly at her almost-entirely-uneaten yogurt; the spoon stands up on its own when she lets go of it. "I don't mind that you have relationships with other people," she says, not looking up at him. "I know you and Robbie were together first, and I don't mind that -- I mean, I like him a lot -- it's just that -- " She runs a hand through her tangled hair and starts over. "I want this to be _fair_, and I don't know how it _can_ be."

Richard covers her other hand with his own, and her fingers interlace with his, almost instinctively.

"Why not?" he says.

She looks up at him -- Richard can't help but notice (again) how blue her worn blue robe makes her eyes look. He's stricken with a piercing desire to kiss her, but Anne has let him know in no uncertain terms that doing that during arguments, or even emotionally charged discussions since this isn't _really_ an _argument_ exactly, is really terribly patriarchal of him and he should not do it anymore (so he doesn't, except to Robbie, who always lets him, and anyway since they are both men it isn't _really_ patriarchal).

"I don't _want_ anyone else, Richard," she says. "Just _you_."

There's nothing Richard can possibly say to that. Instead he slides from his chair to kneel beside Anne and wrap his arms around her; she leans down to hide her face in the crook of his neck, clinging to his shoulders as if she could make him absorb her entire body, and what she says next, muffled against his skin, almost breaks his heart.

"And when I tell you I want to make rules, it's because otherwise I'd let you have anything you want."

Richard draws back a little and cradles her face with his hands.

"I want you to be _happy_," he says.

***

**November 1989**

It's nearly four o'clock on Monday morning when Richard and Anne return home from Berlin, exhausted, light-headed, and more than a little hung over.

"Oxford feels so _quiet_ now," Richard says, as they lie fully-clothed and unchanged on their bed, trying to work up the energy to change or take a shower or _something_. "Even when you allow for it being four in the morning."

"It doesn't feel like any of it's real, anymore," Anne says, her eyes wide. "Two days ago I was dancing in Alexanderplatz and now -- I'm back here and I have to pretend to care about my _dissertation_ \-- "

"Let's not talk about dissertations," Richard laughs. "I'd rather think about the fact that we're getting married."

"Yes!" Anne turns over onto her side in order to kiss him without having to sit up. When they break apart, Richard notices she's actually shaking a little.

"I would have defected for you," she says. "If you'd asked me to marry you before. I don't think I've ever said it to myself before now."

Richard wraps his arms around her and kisses the top of her head.

"It's all right," he says. "You don't have to choose, now."

"I know," Anne says. "It's just that -- I had always meant to go back, after studying in England. I thought it was the right thing to do to stay, to work for a _better_ kind of Communism. But I'd have given it up for you, if you'd asked."

Richard looks closely at her -- the only light on is the tiny bedside lamp, and her face is deeply shadowed, her eyes hollow with fatigue. (He is not convinced she has actually _slept_ since leaving England -- he distinctly remembers that they have _been to bed_, as it were, insofar as furtive, muffled, oh-God-can't-wake-the-roommates celebratory lovemaking counts as _going to bed_, but Anne was always up long before Richard. _I don't want to miss anything_, she had said.) He knows he will never forget the light in her eyes as she hefted a hammer seemingly as big as she was (it couldn't have been that big, really, he knows that), to strike at the wall, the clash of metal on concrete like bells.

He is utterly convinced that he is willing to do absolutely anything for her.

"If you want," he says, "we can go back. As soon as we're done with Oxford. Before that, if you'd rather do it that way."

Anne smiles at him, heartbreakingly.

"What about Robbie?" she says, and before Richard can even _begin_ to think of an answer, she presses her fingers to his lips. "I didn't have to choose between you and seeing my home and family again. I can't make you choose between me and him."

Richard leans in and kisses her again, very gently.

"I think we should probably sleep," he says.

"I'm not tired," she says, but her eyes are already beginning to fall shut. Richard carefully unlaces her boots, and then pulls the duvet over her before switching out the light, staring at the darkness until he can make out her shape beside him.

They don't talk about Richard's offer the next day. Perhaps it's enough for her that he made it.

***

"You're _what_." Robbie, frustratingly incredulous, nearly drops his beer all over the kitchen floor. Richard has planned this all so carefully, not springing it on him after sex or anything (he has not noticed a _particular_ tendency to do this, despite what Robbie has suggested) -- and it has apparently made no difference, because it's going to go miserably.

"I told you," Richard says. "We're getting married. You know, like people _do_."

Robbie buries his face in his hands. "That was an expression of anger, Richard, not a request for clarification."

"Robbie, I don't see what your problem is. Anne and I have been together for two years. We _live_ together, for God's sake. You like Anne."

"That's not the point."

"Why does everyone keep _saying_ that?"

"Maybe because you never seem to fucking _get it_?"

"Look -- " Richard rubs his eyes for a moment. "This isn't actually _about_ you" -- and Robbie absolutely _freezes_.

"Isn't it," he says. It's not a question.

"I mean. I don't want you to feel rejected -- "

"You've got a fucking funny way of showing it, then."

" -- because if I _could_ marry both of you I bloody well _would_."

"You're fucking incredible," Robbie says. "You don't even get that _that's_ the goddamn _point_, do you? It's all fine for _you_ to act like everyone's equal when _you_ can run off and marry your girlfriend and _I_ can't hold your fucking _hand_ in public without it being a fucking _statement_, so don't even fucking _talk_ to me about how much you love _both of us_."

He might as well have punched Richard in the face. It feels basically the same.

Richard spends much of the next week not exactly _avoiding_ Robbie so much as working under the assumption that Robbie is avoiding _him_, and feeling guilty about being miserable on the grounds that he's getting _married_ and should be _happy_ about it, and indeed _is_ extremely happy about it, but it's hard to act like it when you've been told you're a heterosexist asshole for it, and so you spend a lot of time sulking and being on edge and not being at all fair to your poor fiancee who hasn't even done anything wrong and who is doing her incredibly awkward best to support you at a time when _she_ deserves to be happy _not only_ because she's getting married but _also_ because _the oppressive crypto-Soviet government she grew up under has just collapsed._

Another upshot of the whole clusterfuck is that he totally fails to write the conference paper that he's supposed to be delivering in a week and which he has scarcely even looked at since before Berlin. He's sorely tempted to blow off his appointment to discuss it with Simon, but he suspects he is already in the hole for the entire jetting-off-to-Berlin-and-getting-arrested business, even though Simon was actually very understanding about all of it, what with the whole world-changing nature of the thing: it isn't every day that the Cold War comes to a non-nuclear-winter-and-horrible-horrible-death-causing end.

It is much more awkward, however, when you've fallen behind in your scholarly work because you are having a fight with your boyfriend, even if your relationship with your adviser _is_ the kind where you're -- well, not _comfortable_ talking about that sort of thing, because telling someone you are fighting with your boyfriend over the fact that you're marrying your girlfriend is never _comfortable_ even if it's not as bad as _actually doing it_, but rather, it doesn't feel _wildly inappropriate_.

Still, he sort of wants to crawl into a hole and die as he explains his personal crisis and the myriad ways it is fucking up his life and, more relevantly at the moment, his conference paper, especially since Simon is sitting there watching him impassively and demonstrating a remarkable knack for smirking even while smoking a pipe (which he clearly does ironically as part of his Queenly Old Oxford Don persona).

"I don't pretend to understand your love life," he says, finally, removing his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I suppose the only advice I have for you is to remind you that it hasn't actually been _that_ long since homosexuality was completely illegal. That wrecked a great many lives, you know. I was about your age in the fifties and I imagine it's hard for someone of your generation to imagine what that was like, even though it's not as if things are particularly rosy even now -- I assume you haven't forgotten protesting against Section 28 last year?"

"No, of course not," Richard mumbles, wishing he _had_ bothered to keep up on his work, so that he wouldn't have had to make excuses for not finishing and consequently wouldn't be listening to Simon reminding him How Things Are For Gentlemen of Our Persuasion.

"It's a major advantage, socially, to be able to pass for straight. I'm sure I needn't tell you so."

"I'm not trying to pass for straight," Richard says.

"But you still need to remember that you _can_."

Richard looks at his hands for a moment, and then at the bookcase, and then at the prints on the wall behind Simon -- why the hell does he have "Boy Bitten by a Lizard" up there, Richard often wonders: what kind of message does _that_ send to undergrads, not that they'd pick up on the iconography -- before he finally nods and swallows hard. "Can we, um, talk about Froissart now?" he says, but he _does_ get that Simon has a _point_ and everything even though it now feels sort of like he's just had a first-year tutorial on The Gay Lifestyle.

It's nearly midnight when Richard knocks on Robbie's door with absolutely no idea what he's going to say despite spending two-and-a-half pints contemplating it (he's even got a notecard with a lot of false starts which is now no good because they've all been scribbled out). He's even asked Anne for her input, when he called to tell her he'd be home late, but all she said was "Richard, I am probably the _last_ person you should ask about this."

But before he can say anything Robbie pulls him into his arms and exclaims "Christ, I miss you, you fucking bastard," and after that it's not hard to apologize at all.

***

**October 1990**

"I thought all women were completely mad about weddings," Robbie says one evening while they're sitting around in the Turf, discussing their relative lack of major wedding plans, and he's scarcely finished the sentence before Anne is rolling her eyes and Phil, whom Richard has known since they were nine years old and seeing the same child psychiatrist on account of his dad's death and her parents' very nasty divorce, is leaning over to swat at the back of his head.

"Traditional weddings are specifically designed to be a celebration of patriarchy and conspicuous consumption," Anne says, while Phil, more concisely, says "Fuck you, Robbie."

"Oh, come on," Robbie says. "I bet you totally creamed your knickers over Princess Di's wedding."

"I did nothing of the sort," Phil sniffs. "I spent my ninth birthday party half asleep because I'd been up most of the night listening to my parents arguing about swinging. They thought it'd save their marriage. That kind of thing tends to put you off the whole enterprise."

Everyone stares uncomfortably into their beer for a minute. Robbie bites his lip and starts rolling a cigarette.

"Um, I mean, not that you guys won't be fine," she adds, smiling apologetically at Richard and Anne. "Since you're not _horrible people_ like my parents."

"We try," Richard says. "I do like to think we actually, you know, communicate with each other and whatnot."

At which point Anne starts coughing uncontrollably and Robbie nearly inhales his cigarette. Richard looks around the pub, but nothing particularly startling seems to be going on.

***

In the end, Anne and Richard do their best to have a terribly unromantic wedding, but their best, in spite of the fact that the preparations are dominated by a tangle of immigration paperwork, isn't entirely good enough. Even though the actual ceremony, such as it is, is held in the register office and it rains for basically the entire day. Anne has expressed a determination to wear jeans to her own wedding, as if daring anyone to object, but ends up finding a floaty purple dress at Unicorn that wouldn't have looked out of place at Haight-Ashbury. (Richard pins a green carnation to his lapel, an esoteric insistence that his marriage to a woman does not mean he has turned straight, and Robbie laughs at him for it.)

It turns out, anyway, that none of the things they've been worrying about matter all that much, or at least they don't seem important while they're all at the Elizabeth drinking copious amounts of champagne (although the sight of Mum dancing with Simon is perhaps the most disturbing thing Richard has ever seen). Anne's brothers, out of some combination of regard for their sister and post-unification euphoria, even take a stab at pretending they like each other ("Don't even ask what their problem is," Anne has said, "because I don't even _know_"). Even Robbie is blissfully, shockingly happy. Richard has no intention of asking how, precisely, he got into that mood, since he has been accepting about the marriage but fairly glum about the wedding itself -- although he is pretty sure he could guess, if he weren't occupied with the feeling of bubbles in his head.

"Oh God, you're just both so cute," Robbie says. "I don't even understand how you do it -- " and then he snogs each of them in turn, full on the lips, which makes Anne laugh and Richard blush, because seriously his mum and his supervisor and his in-laws are all _right there_. "You're so beautiful -- " and he trails a finger along Richard's jawline, before stopping abruptly and staring closely at Anne. "Do you have any idea what your hair is doing?"

Anne continues to smile, but her eyes widen, just perceptibly.

It's very late at night when they get home, and it's then that the slight strangeness, everything mostly the same but intangibly different, begins to set in: they have the piece of paper, and the rings, now, but has anything changed really, and can you even tell when you're just coming back to your flat like any other night?

"I suppose," Richard says, dropping his jacket over the back of the sofa, "it would be more suitable to take you off to the south of France, wouldn't it?"

Anne laughs and kisses him. "It's all right," she says. "We have plenty of time for that."

Richard slides his arms around her waist. "We do, at that." He smiles down at her, brushing a tendril of hair off her forehead. "God, you're beautiful," he adds.

"Oh, I'd say _you're_ the pretty one, really," Anne says. "Robbie's right about that."

And then it's like something snags in his heart, and he lets go of her. "I should call him, or something," he mutters. "Make sure he's all right -- you saw him, he was clearly high off his face..."

"Richard." Anne drapes her arms around his neck. "It'll be all right. Phil's looking after him."

"I know," he says, and swallows hard. "I just -- "

Anne presses a finger to his lips. "I don't think it will help, Richard. Just let him come down in peace." She draws him down to kiss him again. "And besides, it's our wedding night. Come to bed."

Richard smiles at her, but she seems to have caught something of his transitory melancholy; she sighs and leans against his shoulder, and he bends in to kiss her, just under her ear at the corner of her jawline. Her fingers slide up the back of his neck into his hair -- and then he apparently has a fit of romantic traditionalism and he's stooping to lift her up, whispering "Hold on" into her ear.

"What are you _doing_?" she asks, half-startled and half-laughing, clinging to Richard's neck as her feet go out from under her.

"I'm carrying you to bed, what does it look like?" he says, and then she's laughing for real as he takes a step and immediately wobbles, nearly twisting his knee as he attempts to redistribute their combined weight.

"Put me down!" she giggles, sliding out of his arms. "We're not going to accomplish much if you break yourself, are we?"

"That's an excellent point, isn't it?" he says, as she pulls him toward the bedroom.

***

"Do you think it feels different?" Richard asks afterwards, as they lie tangled together. "Now that we're married?"

Anne leaves off kissing his neck to think about this for a moment. "Not really," she says.

"You know, I didn't think so either," Richard laughs. "I don't suppose that's very romantic, is it?"

"I like to think it means we've been doing it right." She presses him onto his back, her hair falling about his face as she bends over him, and whispers, "Of course, a valid experiment needs repeatable results."

"And we're certainly conscientious scholars." Richard grins at her, and then gasps as her hand curls between his legs.

They may not be doing anything _differently_, he suspects, but they're _certainly_ doing it _right_.

***

**May 1992**

Richard's teaching schedule for Trinity term is really odd, so when Anne goes off to Berlin for her brother Wernher's second wedding, he stays in Oxford to give tutorials, read weekly essays, and take the occasional frustrated international phone call ("my _God_, Richard, I don't know _why_ she's trying to get Siegmund to come in the _first_ place, she _knows_ they don't like each other, and also, you owe me so _much_ for not having to deal with this").

His sense of tact, which he actually _does_ have despite the repeated insistence of everyone in his life that he doesn't, forbids him from pointing out that she's left him alone with Robbie during Eurovision week.

He's lying on the sofa with his head in Robbie's lap, reading a grammatically tortured essay and attempting to tune out the ear-sodomizing pop music coming from the telly, when Robbie sighs plaintively (and curiously not on account of what he's hearing), and mutters, "This is really more fun when Anne's here."

Richard smiles up at him. "Not that I'm disagreeing," he says, "but I'm a little surprised to hear it from _you_."

"I'm going to ignore your implication that I don't like her," Robbie says, "but she actually _argues_ with me about this stuff. That's what makes it _entertaining_. You just say" -- and here he puts on the Queen's accent -- "'whatever you say, darling' and 'well, it's all rubbish anyway, isn't it?'"

"Well, it _is_, isn't it?"

"Well, of _course_ it is! That's the _point_."

"Whatever you say, darling -- also, would you kindly let go of my nose?"

"You could at least comment on how Dschinghis Khan was clearly robbed in '79."

"Dschinghis what?"

Robbie's brow furrows for a moment, and his mouth hangs slightly open.

"Ask Anne about it when she gets back."

"I'll do that," Richard says, pulling himself up into a sitting position and leaning against Robbie's side. "In the meantime," he murmurs into Robbie's ear, "why are we arguing when we could be making out?"

"Because you're a dork," Robbie laughs, and Richard gestures towards the screen -- _you're watching_ that, _and_ I'm _the dork?_ \-- while running his tongue along the edge of Robbie's ear, which makes him shiver, and then laugh. "All right!" he says. "As soon as the UK entry's done. I get so few chances to feel like I'm having sex with someone relatively cool."

Based on the ridiculously twitchy dance the UK singer is doing, Richard can kind of see what he means, but that was a low blow. "Good luck getting a hard-on ever again," he grumbles. "And I hope you can live with dooming me to a lifetime of kitsch-induced impotence. You'll have to explain yourself to Anne, I expect..."

"Oh, for _fuck's sake_ \-- " And then Robbie's got his tongue down Richard's throat and his hand in his trousers, and Richard's pulling him down on top of him.

It turns out nobody is doomed to a lifetime of kitsch-induced impotence after all. At least not for another year.

Anne returns from Berlin the following evening, tired but in a decent mood -- the family drama must have been fairly low-key -- and when Richard meets her at the bus station he wraps his arms around her, notices it's awkward because she's still holding her bag, takes the bag, attempts to return to the embrace, sets the bag down, and then kisses her while she's laughing at him.

"God, I missed you," he says.

"I missed you too," she says, releasing him and then slipping her hand into his. "But I'm sure you managed with Robbie."

"Well, yes," Richard said. "But it's much nicer with both of you. You know, Robbie missed you too."

"That's very sweet of him!"

"Apparently Eurovision isn't nearly as much fun without you...incidentally, what precisely is Dschinghis Khan?"

Anne's laughter is contagious.

***

**March 1994**

It's absolutely pissing down rain when Richard does his viva, which Richard has been gloomily, and annoyingly, insisting is perfectly appropriate for his impending doom, much to Robbie's considerable annoyance, since everybody knows Richard is completely brilliant, including Richard himself when he's not insisting on his own stupidity (and never the kind of stupidity that he _does_ have, like the kind that leads him to bitch incessantly about failing his viva).

"Oh God, I'm going to fail so hard," Richard moans, for at least the thirtieth time since breakfast. "I'm going to fail, and there will be absolutely nothing to be done, and I will have to go drown myself in the Cherwell."

"You can't possibly drown yourself in the Cherwell," Robbie says. "At least, not with any dignity."

"I don't deserve dignity," Richard says, "because I am going to fail spectacularly. Besides, the rain ought to be good for at least a few more inches."

"For fuck's sake, Richard." Robbie takes his arm. "You know how I'm always telling you you're an utter wanker?"

Richard nods, looking distinctly dubious.

"Well, forget it. You're fucking brilliant."

Richard says nothing, preferring instead to chew his fingernails contemplatively.

"I suppose if I left my robes on I could do an Ophelia sort of thing," he says. "That's at least marginally dignified."

"Well, if it starts to go badly, you could tell them you had a paper sent up for good at Eton."

Richard rolls his eyes, but his stupidly gloomy expression has lightened a bit.

"I'm sure when you've turned into some great wheezing Tory bastard like all Old Etonians you'll go on and on about having been in Sixth Form Select, well into your dotage. I may have to shoot myself pre-emptively."

"Fuck you, Robbie," Richard says, but he's grinning broadly now.

"Not till after your viva."

Anne shows up about an hour into the thing, while Robbie is sitting outside smoking and watching the rain. "I don't suppose there's any point in asking how it's going," she says, and Robbie shrugs. "It's not as if we can tell from out here. Did he ever manage to cheer up?"

"Oh, of _course_ not," Robbie laughs.

"Of course not." Anne grins at him. "He's the last person in the world who has anything to worry about!"

Their confidence is, naturally, well-founded. It's another hour and a half, the last forty-five minutes of which are spent making awkward conversation with Richard's supervisor, before Richard comes out and there are hugs and congratulations and lots of discussion of things that need to be improved in order to publish.

The first thing Richard says, far too despairingly for someone who's just earned his D.Phil., is "Oh God, I need a drink."

It's nearly midnight and still raining when they make it home from the King's Arms, completely drenched but just pissed enough not to care. Richard is _still_ wearing his gown, which makes him look simultaneously batlike and pathetic, especially once they get to Richard and Anne's flat and he's standing there dripping on the carpet, the end of his nose slightly pink from the damp evening chill.

"Dr. Bordeaux," Robbie muses. "That sounds like someone with wine-based superpowers."

"I _do_ have wine-based superpowers," Richard says.

"Clearly this is why you are standing there dripping all over everything," Anne laughs, helping him out of his gown.

"I'm having an identity crisis, or something. I have no idea what I'm going to _do_ without my thesis," Richard says, removing his jacket and draping it over the radiator before falling in a heap on the sofa. "I've lived with the damn thing so long."

"Might I suggest staying in bed for at least a week?" Anne's eyes sparkle with mischief as she sits beside him and starts in on loosening his tie, and he beams at her and ducks his head to kiss her fingers.

"Christ, I'm going to go home if you two are going to act like _that_," Robbie says, and then Richard looks up, all dripping and wide-eyed, and smiles at him.

"I'd really love it if you stayed," he says.

And his smile is totally dazzling, and he looks absolutely beautiful in his sodden and rumpled subfusc, and then Anne smiles too, her face going all pink, and Robbie knows perfectly well what Richard's asking of him, and he doesn't know whether it's that he wants in on the just-this-side-of-nauseating incandescent glow the two of them seem to emit or it's just the champagne or the convenient excuse to get out of his wet clothes, but he thinks, _you know, I can totally do this_.

"What the hell," he says, grinning. "You've earned it."

Richard pulls him down onto the sofa and kisses him hard, and the three of them collapse into a damp, giggling confusion of tangled limbs and wandering hands, Richard turning from Robbie to Anne and back again.

"Possibly," Anne says, her voice muffled against Richard's neck, "the sofa isn't the _most_ comfortable place for this kind of thing."

Robbie is pretty sure this is the first threesome he's been involved in where everyone's got virtually all of their clothes on by the time they get to the bedroom, although Richard's jacket and tie are currently lying in a puddle in front of the sofa, and Robbie had made a good start on unbuttoning his shirt before they decided on a change of venue.

"I've never done this before," Anne confesses to Robbie, half-whispered.

"I've never done this with a girl!" Robbie answers, and they both laugh, only slightly hysterically, as Robbie moves in to undo Richard's belt and Richard slides one arm around Anne's waist to pull her closer for a kiss, and his other hand just past the waistband of Robbie's jeans, which makes his breath catch and distracts him from drawing Richard's belt free. When Richard and Anne have pulled apart for breath, Robbie loops the belt over Richard's shoulders and draws him in, kissing him fiercely as Richard unzips his jeans and begins the slightly arduous process of peeling them off, his hands warm against damp cool skin.

"Let go of the belt, Robbie," Anne says, after she's finished ducking behind Richard to reach around him and undo his trousers. "I can't get his shirt off!"

She makes an excellent point. Robbie lets go of the belt and removes Richard's shirt himself before stepping out of his own jeans, and Anne draws Richard's trousers down, sinking to her knees to trace his hipbone with her mouth and slide a hand up his thigh. Richard gasps and winds his fingers in Anne's hair -- Robbie suspects that if he doesn't do something soon he's going to get thoroughly left out. He trails a hand down Richard's chest to curl his fingers around his cock, feeling him stiffen against his palm.

"Hold on -- " Richard's voice is thick as he draws back from Robbie and bends to help Anne to her feet and out of her (truly regrettable) jumper. Robbie shrugs and peels off his own shirt, sitting on the bed to watch as Richard eases her skirt down her hips. Her fingers clench on Richard's shoulders and she sighs as he stops kissing her neck long enough to unhook her bra.

Robbie doesn't think he's ever been this close to a naked woman before, or at least not one who isn't a Pre-Raphaelite painting, and Anne certainly isn't a Pre-Raphaelite painting; maybe she could pass for one from the shoulders up if she dyed her hair red, but she is short and kind of squishy-looking with pudgy thighs and slightly asymmetrical breasts and exactly the sort of attitude toward depilation you would expect from a German communist.

He wonders what she looks like through Richard's eyes.

Not that he wants to think about _that_ too much right now, because watching Richard get all wrapped up in Anne's presence even when he's right there is a sharp pain like he's swallowed a caltrop, and it's really much worse when everyone is completely naked.

"They call these things _threesomes_ for a reason, huh?" he calls out, trying for flippancy, and he apparently succeeds, because Richard's response is to fling himself at Robbie, pressing him to the bed in a rush of pointy elbows and knees. After a moment Anne joins the two of them on the bed, stretching out beside them; Robbie catches sight of her impish grin when Richard pauses for breath -- reason enough to roll over so that he's on top of Richard, who laughs and kisses him again. When they break the kiss, Robbie glances briefly at Anne; she watches intently, biting her lip, her pupils wide. Richard disentangles his hand from Robbie's hair and reaches out to her, trailing his fingers down her back as he kisses her in turn, and Robbie takes the opportunity to leave his own trail of kisses down Richard's chest, eliciting a muffled gasp as his lips close on Richard's cock, which becomes a strangled cry of pleasure and a clenching of fingers at Robbie's shoulder as he runs his teeth gently along its length --

\-- and then it isn't long before Richard's arching his back and crying out and his fingers dig into Robbie's back enough that it hurts, and Robbie sits back on his heels, feeling his own cock hardening as he watches Richard shudder to a stop. Richard has got his eyes tightly closed and his hand braced at the back of Anne's neck, and she smiles down at him as she traces his nipple with the end of her braid, though at this point her breathing is nearly as labored as Richard's; her face is flushed and her own nipples look decidedly pointier. It's actually sort of cute even if Richard could really stand to acknowledge the man who just gave him a pretty damn fine blowjob (if Robbie does say so himself, and of course he does).

After a moment Richard opens his eyes, and, after giving Anne a lingering kiss, sits up, grinning broadly at Robbie.

"I always forget how _good_ you are at that," he says, reaching out to trail a finger along Robbie's jawline, and Robbie turns his head just enough to catch that finger in his mouth, flicking his tongue across the tip before releasing it.

"I suppose I can forgive you," he murmurs, trailing his thumb suggestively over Richard's lips. "I _am_ pretty mind-blowing."

Richard laughs, and the sound seems to come from deep in his throat. He catches Robbie's hand, and kisses the inside of his wrist, trails his tongue over the lines of his palm -- Anne has pressed herself to Richard's back, watching raptly as she leans on his shoulder, and when Richard's tongue flicks over the space between Robbie's fingers her eyes widen, and she leans back and pulls Richard on top of her.

"Oh, for fuck's sake -- " Robbie heaves a hopefully-effective sigh and rolls his eyes. "Fine, then." He climbs awkwardly off the bed. "Where's the lube?"

Richard appears to have his lips attached to Anne's collarbone, but not quite firmly enough not to answer.

"Same place it always is," he murmurs, with what Robbie feels is insufficient anticipation of a good hard shag, even if he _has_ just got off. He rolls his eyes _harder_ and then rummages through the drawer in the bedside table -- God, he did _not_ need to know they own a strap-on -- until he finds a few stray condoms and a mostly-flattened tube of Glide. He unscrews the cap, deciding that there is, in fact, enough for a hearty round of buggery, though he is not at all sure that Richard deserves to have anything particularly interesting inserted into his arse at this particular juncture, and feels he should consider himself lucky that storming off to the bathroom mid-threesome and having a nice wank instead is far more juvenile than Robbie is willing to countenance.

By the time he's got back to the bed, Richard and Anne show little indication that they haven't forgotten his presence entirely; she's lying there with her head thrown back as he attempts to leave kisses on every inch of her body, sometimes feather-light and sometimes hard enough to raise flushed red marks on her skin, his fingers tracing patterns on her breasts, her belly, her hips -- she draws her knees up, and catches hold of Richard's hand as it trails over her thigh, guiding it inward, and this strikes Robbie as the perfect moment to trail a lubed-up finger down Richard's back.

It's a fairly effective gambit: Richard shivers in simultaneous pleasure and startlement, which throws him off his stroke enough that Anne sits up expectantly, and Robbie flashes her his most evil grin.

"You complete _bastard_," she cries, falling back against the pillows, her voice shaking with laughter or frustration.

"Had to remind you two I was here, didn't I?" Robbie drapes an arm around Richard's shoulders, leaning in to kiss the back of his neck.

Robbie doesn't know enough German to know _exactly_ what Anne says next, but he suspects he's got the general idea.

"I know what that means now, you kn-- " Richard begins, but anything else he has to say dissolves into a kind of incoherent verbal squiggle as Robbie slides one and then two fingers into him, and it sounds funny enough that even Anne laughs, pulling herself onto her knees to kiss him.

"Now then," she says, lying back again, "I think we were right about _here_." She tries to hook her knee over Richard's shoulder in a manner that would probably be terribly seductive if she were six inches taller, but as it is, the best she can manage is pretending she's actually attempting to caress his ear with her toes.

This is apparently seductive enough for Richard -- Robbie makes a mental note to try it sometime, perhaps as part of a kick in the head, but as much as he's got one coming, that would probably spoil his chances of getting off even if it were possible to do from this position, and getting off is _really_ at the _very_ top of his list of priorities for the immediate future. He withdraws his fingers -- Richard bends down to trail kisses along the inside of Anne's thigh, tracing the seam between her legs with a gentle hand, and when his lips and tongue finally join his fingers, drawing a long shivering moan from her throat, Robbie braces his hands at Richard's hips and pushes carefully into him. Anne's hands clench on Richard's shoulders as he shudders and groans; he slips two fingers into her, and she makes a soft sound that's somewhere between a gasp and a cry, while Robbie leans forward to leave bruising kisses on Richard's neck, and the three of them rock against each other, all efforts to jockey for position abandoned in the face of an increasingly urgent need.

It's Anne who comes first -- her legs tremble violently and her eyes widen and then snap shut as her entire body spasms, her heels digging into the bed and her toes curling and her fingers clutching at the sheets, and even though he can't escape the memory of Richard's mouth having a similar effect on _him_, Robbie doesn't need it to empathize with her, because damn, he is getting close himself. She lies there for a moment staring blissfully at the ceiling, and Richard bends over her, bracing himself on his elbows as Robbie grinds into him and leans forward to rake his teeth across Richard's shoulder, hard enough to leave marks and to make Richard gasp. Robbie can feel his entire body tensing up; he clings to Richard's shoulders, pressing his lips to the emphatically red mark his teeth have just made, and then he's coming hard and he can hear his own voice crying out roughly, muffled against Richard's skin.

Richard moans in frustration when Robbie finally pulls out of him, collapsing into a red-faced and still-decidedly-aroused ball.

"Christ, Richard, I'm not a fucking machine," Robbie murmurs, when he's finished disposing of his condom and flopped down on the bed beside Richard, who rolls over onto his back to swat at him halfheartedly. "Besides," he adds, flashing Anne another evil grin, "_some of us_ haven't been pulling our weight in that department, huh?"

Anne rolls her eyes indulgently, moving to lie at Richard's other side. "I was _getting there_," she says, fingers tracing lazy circles on his chest, and Richard takes her hand to guide it lower.

"You might get there _faster_," he says, and Anne laughs, her hand closing around him and her thumb circling the tip of his cock. He's much quieter this time, his eyes screwing shut and his mouth falling soundlessly open as he comes all over Anne's hand; he wraps an arm around each of them and clings tightly as he catches his breath.

"God," he says, after another long moment to collect himself. "That was _brilliant_. Thank you both so much."

Robbie wonders briefly if he's caught onto any awkwardness at _all_, but he is tired and sated and not the least bit inclined to bring it up _right now_; instead, he slides his own arm around Richard's waist.

"We totally spoil you, you know," he says, and Richard laughs.

"It's true," Anne says, and then sits up. "Hold on, I need to go wash my hands -- " and she dashes off to the bathroom, leaving Richard and Robbie alone, Richard kissing Robbie's neck lazily before leaning in to kiss his lips.

"Hey, I know where that mouth of yours has been," Robbie mutters, trying for flippancy, and Richard blinks at him.

"What, your neck?" Richard says, in that deliberately obtuse manner he occasionally affects, and Robbie rolls his eyes -- he decides not to press the issue further, but he _does_ wipe Richard's lips with a corner of the sheet, an unnecessary gesture, since it's at that moment that Anne returns, carrying a towel, which she hands to Richard before curling up under the duvet, and Robbie takes the occasion to go wash his own hands. The faint giggling he hears coming from the bedroom has already subsided by the time he's finished.

"I still love you, you great prat," he whispers as he slides into the bed, but by then Richard has already drifted to sleep.

***

It isn't really _that_ early in the morning when Anne crawls out of bed, sneaking out to the kitchen so as not to wake up Richard and Robbie, but the relentless greyness of the morning and the persistent drizzle make it feel much closer to darkness than it really is.

Or perhaps, she reflects as she stares fuzzily at the coffeepot, she just hasn't finished sleeping off last night.

The thing that she keeps coming back to is that she'd never expected to be so ridiculously aroused by seeing Richard with Robbie. It seems like it should make a lot of difference, when you invite your husband's lover into bed with you, whether it's something you're doing to be nice because your husband just defended his thesis, or whether you get off on it. Especially if your husband's lover -- all right, no, she tells herself, just use names, because this is stupid, even in your own head -- especially if Robbie is clearly not at all attracted to _you_ and seems a little bit bothered at how much Richard _is_. Which, after all, she _is_ married to him, why _shouldn't_ he be, and yet. And also it's really difficult to remember to remind someone he needs to be attentive to _two_ people when you're that turned on.

And on the _other_ hand, Robbie seems to direct his apparently-endless arsenal of stupid English insults at Richard all the time, so how would she know whether or not he's in the habit of being constantly sarcastic in bed? It's not as if she has any other informed basis for judgment, and he's certainly constantly sarcastic everywhere _else._ Which feels like a terrible rationalization, anyway. There's this whole part of Richard's life that she's only tangentially involved in, and that doesn't _bother_ her anymore: if there's anything in the world she can trust, it's Richard's love. But it doesn't seem like _Robbie_ feels that way -- it's clear enough to _her_ that Richard loves him madly, but maybe it's harder for him to see when he's _inside_ it.

So it feels terribly exploitative, that when she remembers the two of them tangled together on the bed, pictures Robbie sliding down to take Richard into his mouth, she feels a flushing in her cheeks and a sharp but definitely pleasant twinge in her belly and thighs.

Which is the _most_ awkward train of thought she could possibly be having when Robbie stumbles into the kitchen, carrying his rumpled shirt and looking considerably the worse for wear.

"Hi," she says, feeling surprisingly shy given that they've known each other for years before the whole getting-naked-together thing, and he gestures at her with a raised index finger, making a beeline for the coffeepot.

"Coffee first," he says.

Anne nods, sipping at her own coffee and watching as Robbie sits down, pulls a pouch of tobacco and some rolling papers out of his pocket, and fiddles with them until he's had enough coffee to assemble a competent cigarette.

"You mind if -- " he starts.

"Of course not," Anne interrupts. "You know that."

"Right," he says. Anne does, in point of fact, know what he means: even if you've known someone for a long time, having sex with them -- well, that's not really accurate, _exactly_, since they haven't _really_ had sex _with each other_, but still, close enough -- really does reset everything. Except, she supposes, in special cases, because she clearly remembers it didn't feel weird with Richard, which was obviously evidence that they _ought_ to have been having sex and it was clearly right to do it.

"Do you want something to eat?" she says. "I don't imagine Richard will be up for a while -- he's awful in the mornings, after all -- "

"I know," Robbie says, with a balefully indulgent smirk, and Anne is overcome with a desire to kick herself. Instead she gets up from the table to make toast, because having a vehicle for Nutella will probably improve this incredibly awkward conversation at least a tiny bit.

"Have you noticed," Robbie continues, "that we're talking to each other like we've barely met?"

"Robbie, there is about to be chocolate," Anne says. "And at that point I will be capable of talking about last night. But first, chocolate."

"Fair enough," Robbie says.

"So," Anne says, when she's returned to the table with a plate full of toast and a jar of Nutella.

"Right," Robbie says. He's apparently decided he's caffeinated enough to handle cigarette rolling; Anne watches as he fondles the little pile of tobacco and paper into a tube, unable to stop thinking about the effect those fingers have on Richard. She can feel her face turning red again as his tongue flicks over the paper, sealing the cigarette shut, and even redder when it's evident that Robbie has noticed.

"You all right?" The smirk is definitely back now, but all the same, his question also has undertones of _so, do you regret it?_

"I'm fine," she says. "Really." After a moment devoted entirely, and necessarily, to the fortifying qualities of Nutella, she adds, "What about you?"

Robbie doesn't look at her, devoting his entire attention instead to smoothing out his slightly wobbly-looking cigarette before lighting up and taking a drag -- Anne tries to remember if he's always looked like he's fellating his cigarettes, or if she is just making unnecessary if pertinent associations, or if he is just doing that to be emphatic. All of those possibilities seem quite plausible, really.

"It's not like I didn't _enjoy_ myself," he says, after another long drag, and Anne bites back her instinctive reply, which is _No, I could tell you did._

"And it's not like anything's _different_," he adds.

"No," Anne says.

"But."

"But."

This is totally not working at all. Anne buries her face in her hands, partly from embarrassment and partly for some pretense of of privacy in which to think.

"The thing about being involved with Richard," she says, finally, "and I don't think I actually have to tell _you_ this, I'm sure you know it, but -- I don't know, I don't think we talk about things enough. You and I, I mean. Do you know Brecht, much?"

"I saw Judi Dench as Mother Courage," Robbie says.

"Do you know _Der Kaukasische Kreidekreis_? Sorry, _Caucasian Chalk Circle_, I'm used to thinking of it in German," she adds, when Robbie blinks confusedly at her.

"Can't say that I do," he says, snuffing out his cigarette and beginning the meticulous process of rolling another.

"This peasant girl raises the governor's child after he's abandoned during a revolution," she says, "and when the real mother finds out where he is, they go before a judge. And the test he orders is to put the child into a circle on the ground, and both women try to pull him out. The idea is that only the true mother can do it."

"Like King Solomon," Robbie says.

"Right. Except that it's the peasant girl and not the birth mother who truly loves the child, and so she lets go." She can feel her face growing warm again; this doesn't really feel like what she meant to say, because she's making it sound like _she's_ the one who's been making sacrifices, or worse yet like she's lecturing _him_ about it, from the standpoint of someone who really hasn't _had to_. Which would make her a horrible person. Or a bad winner, which is not the way she wants to think about this situation _at all._

"I mean, of course Brecht was writing a metaphor about communism," she adds haltingly, "which is why it's the adoptive mother who's the true one, but..."

"But if you love someone, you can't tear them in half," Robbie says, and then adds, almost to himself, " -- even if they're doing it to you."

Anne takes both of Robbie's hands in hers. She's always tried not to think of him as a rival, and he's always tried not to treat her as one, but -- it's always this great gaping hole that they can't patch up and never really talk about, the fact that Robbie's claim to Richard's love predates Anne's, or that Richard and Anne could -- well, that they could _hold hands_ in public without drawing comment, for God's sake, let alone anything else -- and Anne has never actually asked Richard whether he would have left her, if Robbie hadn't been willing to share, because she couldn't bear the answer either way.

"I don't think we should have any more threesomes," she says, gently, and Robbie's smile _almost_ reaches his eyes.

"Yeah, me neither," he says.

"We'll tell Richard about it, when he gets up," she says, and Robbie shakes his head.

"I don't think I'm up for that talk right now." He snuffs out his cigarette, pulls his shirt over his head, and stands up. "I think I'm just going to go home."

Anne wraps her arms around him and kisses him on the cheek, and after a moment Robbie returns the embrace, a little hesitantly.

"Richard _does_ love you," she says, after they've let go of each other. "I know he's bad at it. I'm sorry."

"Yeah," he says. "And, well -- it seemed like a good idea at the time, didn't it?"

And then he's out the door, and Anne is left alone in the kitchen to rinse out the coffee cups and try not to think too hard. She deposits them in the sink and then goes back to bed.

Richard is still sound asleep, which isn't surprising, really; he looks oddly worn, as if years of thesis work have caught up with him all at once. It makes it strangely difficult to be frustrated with him, even if she _is_ frustrated on Robbie's behalf. She crawls under the duvet and slides an arm around his waist, and this turns out to be enough movement to wake him; his eyes flutter open and he smiles sleepily at her.

"Hey there," he says, and she smiles back at him.

"Hey yourself," she says, and kisses him. It tastes like socks, but that's all right.

"Where's Robbie?" Richard looks around, having suddenly noticed that the bed is a bit emptier than it was last time he was paying attention.

Anne bites her lip nervously -- this isn't much of a fun conversation to have, certainly not first thing in the morning, but she and Robbie have had it, so Richard needs to as well. Granted, they'd had coffee, but Richard doesn't _like_ coffee, which is his own fault.

"He went home," she says, finally.

Anne can almost see the gears turning in Richard's sleep-fogged (and probably also still sex-fogged) brain: his brow furrows in confusion, and then his eyes widen, and then his face falls in disappointment.

"Oh." Richard rolls over onto his back and stares at the ceiling. "I've fucked this up immensely, haven't I?"

Anne doesn't feel comfortable answering him directly: yes, it was a bad idea, but she also knows that if she says so, it's the sort of thing that will sink in, and she can't say it; it will make her feel cruel and she can't do that, even to be kind, if it would be kind, which she's not sure: it's not always clear what's the best way to show your love. And she knows they'll move past it, and pretend last night never happened, and eventually the pretense will become second nature. Because otherwise, no matter how much they all love each other, everything would break.

"We love you anyway," she says.


End file.
